


Less Important Than You

by gaiasash



Category: Dead Poets Society (1989)
Genre: M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-10-21 16:14:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20696393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaiasash/pseuds/gaiasash
Summary: When you can’t let yourself want someone fully, when the walls your brain builds around that part of it are the only things keeping you safe, you end up wanting less. Not that wanting less is any less great, any less terrible.This is the nature of wanting less, ever-shifting, all-consuming.





	Less Important Than You

When you can’t let yourself want someone fully, when the walls your brain builds around that part of it are the only things keeping you safe, you end up wanting less. Not that wanting less is any less great, any less terrible. It’s like a nine-volt battery hooked up to some part of Todd, Byron would say heart or soul or some long Greek word but Byron would be wrong. Really, some days it is his fingertips and some days it is his soft palate and some days it is the pit of his stomach. But never the heart-soul bit.

This is the nature of wanting less, ever-shifting, all-consuming. 

At dinner when Neil’s tray clatters against his and Charlie reaches across the table to grab Neil’s roll he wants a shared secret. In his mind he intertwines his fingers with Neils’ under the table for just a moment and imagines how Neil’s eyes would glint, how the corner of his mouth would quirk, how he’d draw in a quick breath and none of the others would notice. They are not the noticing type, a fact which has always been to Todd’s advantage, but he is willing to pretend that there are stakes, dark and dangerous and utterly worth a second of cold fingers on rough-hewn palm. 

The first time snow softens the rooftops that winter-truth be told, it’s fall, it’s not even Thanksgiving yet when the snow gets deep enough to leave tracks-he sits in the windowsill and stares out at the lake. It doesn’t snow like this in the city, and what little snow they do get turns to muddy slush as soon as it hits the street. It’s like a picture book, the way it sits on the trees, and, stupidly, it makes him think about Neil. He wants a story, a frivolous, childish story where the pair of them build a snowman, laugh and fall down and enjoy each other’s company. There’s a certain way the cold makes you breathless, draws the life out of you. He wants laughter mixed together and cracking, like thin ice, in the November evening. 

The second-ever time Todd tries whiskey and the first time he kind of likes it is in the Cave, and of course it is, there are so many strange firsts in the Cave. It tastes hot more than anything else, and it stays hot all the way down his throat, and it makes him laugh more and talk easier and it is incredible. That night, he wants the most dangerous thing of all, and he can’t even think about it in his abstract poet’s words. He wants to kiss Neil, plain and simple. And maybe he’s blushing but it’s dark inside and they are not the noticing type. But there’s enough light that he can see the shadows on Neil’s face and under his eyes while he smiles and reaches for the bottle. He wants to kiss Neil and put his hands on Neil’s face and then put them everywhere, give the battery what it wants-

He throws up on Meeks’ shoes before the walls come all the way down and for that he is almost grateful.

And at night, every night, there is a want to be wrapped up in Neil’s stupid, spindly arms.

And later, for a long time, there will be a hundred stinging wants for more; more time and more truth and more love, and it will not be a battery but an electric chair. But there is no helping that, or there will be no helping that. This wanting now is all that matters.

**Author's Note:**

> follow my twitter @nightmareeyess and also forgive me for always having stupid poetic and meandering thoughts about this movie which has wrapped its award-winning screenplay around my brain stem. 
> 
> title from love love love by of monsters and men


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